Here's something people forget about The Lego Movie: it was a commercial.
The entire film was, at its core, an advertisement for Lego products. And it made $468 million at the box office. People literally paid money to watch a feature-length ad—because the ad was worth watching. It earned a 97% on Rotten Tomatoes. Lego's profit increased over 15% after release.
This is the standard I think about when it comes to brand content. Not "how do we make ads less annoying?" but "how do we make content so good that people seek it out?"
Lego built a world to engage their audience in a meaningful way by creating content so good that people want to see it—they even look for it. Movies, video games, theme parks, hotels, themed sets, conferences. An entire ecosystem designed to sell little building blocks. And it works because every piece of that ecosystem is actually good.
This is why we built Gutted.
Three teams compete to renovate a van, RV, or school bus in five days. Real competition. Real drama. Real entertainment. And yes, real brand partners—Hart Tools, Aventon Bikes, Arrowhead Water, and 30+ others.
The brands weren't interrupting the show. The brands were part of the show. When a team uses Hart Tools to complete a build, that's not a commercial break—that's the content. Viewers want to see it because it's interesting, not because we forced it on them.
Traditional digital ads have roughly a 3.75% conversion rate. Brands waste hundreds of billions of dollars on impressions that nobody wants. But through content that people actually seek out, some brands see conversion rates of 75% or higher.
The difference is simple: start with "what would people actually want?" and work backwards to the brand integration. That's harder than buying interruptions, but it's more durable. People don't skip content they enjoy.